dotCommonweal

Boycotting Amazon and the new Internet Barons

I was chatting several days ago with Bill McGarvey, a friend who is co-author of the book The Freshman Survival Guide: Soulful Advice for Studying, Socializing, and Everything in Between. I told him that it struck me as an ideal present for a graduating high school student. Bill informed me, though, that he faced a problem: Amazon said on its website that it would usually take three to five weeks to ship it. This afternoon, it listed 3 to 5 seeks, then changed to 2 to 4. Either way, Amazon's shipping delay creates an obstacle for the customer who wants to give the book as a gift at a graduation party.

The problem is that Bill's book was published by an imprint of Hachette, which has refused to cave in to Amazon's increasing demands for larger payments from the publishing industry. The deliberately long shipping time is part of Amazon's campaign of intimidation against Hachette--and against its authors, their books and the free flow of ideas. It certainly puts Jeff Bezos in an odd position: owner of the Washington Post, which we look toward as a beacon of First Amendment values, and owner of a company trying to suppress the sale of books. It's brazen and it's wrong.

Ardelle Cowie, a Connecticut investor, is rightly bothered by this. According to The New York Times, she has begun a "lonely boycott" of Amazon. I wonder if it will be that lonely. After my conversation with Bill, I resolved I wouldn't buy anything from Amazon unless it was unavailable elsewhere.

Having tired of the high-handed ways of the new Internet barons, I also switched the preferred search engine in my computer from Google to DuckDuckGo.com a few months ago. (Don't laugh until you've tried it. It gives good searches without tracking you.) It's not exactly a boycott, since I'll still use Google when needed. But I've reduced my usage substantially, without any drawbacks.

I do plan to get a copy of Bill's book for my wife, who can use it in her role as school nurse in a Catholic high school. Fortunately, there are plenty of places to buy it. There's no need to use Amazon.

Comments

Amazon sells fourteen of your articles and one of your books. ($9.95 seems a bit high for an article.)

Will you be withdrawing your book and your articles from Amazon?

Imho, Commonweal's denunciations of Amazon are hypocritical. Above, you advocate boycotting Amazon, but below there are links to "Commonweal Magazine's Amazon Store" and to an Amazon page where subscriptions are sold.

Just over two years ago, dotCommonweal ran a blog by Matthew Boudway called "The Best Case Against Amazon You'll Ever Read." In it, he recommended an article by Leon Wieseltier about Amazon's "market piggishness."

But as in your case, Wieseltier and Boudway both sell their books and articles on Amazon. So does Grant Gallicho, although he claimed he's "never seen one red cent" and Amazon did not have his permission to sell his old articles.

Its hard to keep track of who are the bad guys and who are the good guys. I was pissed at Barnes and Noble for a long time because,when they opened a superstore not too far from my favorite bookstore, Brentano's, that was the end of Brentano's. But they started looking pretty good compared to Amazon, so I dumped my Kindle and got the whole family Nooks. That worked out well.

But I do order a lot from Barnes and Noble; because I have the B&N credit card, I get free "lazer shipping"; sometimes I get my order the same day, which I cant figure out how they make money on that.

For a long time, the only indie bookstore near us was run by a bunch of anti-social basement dwellers who would comment derisively on our choices at check-out. When B&N moved in, I was immediately taken with the improved service and selection. The indie went out of biz, as it should have.

I also refuse to purchase books from student book stores, most of which are indies, because they gouge students on new sales and resales. (I realize publishers often have the bigger hand in the gouging here.) Before online bookstores offered cheaper options, I started a list of students who wanted to sell textbooks direct to students enrolled in the next semester, circumventing the bookstore and its evil capitalist ways. I also refused (and still do when possible) to force students to buy new editions of textbooks which have only changed marginally. (I once did a poll asking students whether my actions were defensible, since the bookstore hires many student workers. They said, "Yeah, because they pay us s***, and still charge us the same price for books."

I purchase Kindle editions from Amazon.com because I have a chronic lung condition/allergies that a lot of paper lying around the house makes worse. Kindle books have also reduced clutter (I purchase my Commonweal subscription on line). I also have the older version of kindle with text-to-speech function, which I sometimes need. I don't mind the "robot" voice. I can also borrow library books on it.

Amazon did finally agree to make price concessions to publishers and authors (though, of course, not without litigation).

I have never had to wait more than a week for anything Amazon shipped from its warehouse, and I always go for free or standard delivery.

The problem, as the article mentions in passing, is that most of the robber barons (and I would include institutions of higher education here) is that they are able to circumvent having to pay a living wage and benefits to many workers by hiring part-timers ... who earn less because they work fewer hours and who get no ACA mandated benefits at all if you keep them under 29 hours per week. (All of you are paying for my Obamacare policy, thanks very much, because my employer is too cheap to do it.) But you boycott everybody who does this, and you'll be wandering around with nothing to eat, read or wear, though, like Jim, I refuse to shop at Walmart, and I have (almost) successfully given up fast food (except for the coffee drive through).

For the record, if you write for Commonweal, they own the copyright to your work and can sell it at will through Amazon or any other place they want to. Pretty standard arrangement unless you're syndicated. Authors are paid up front. And for a nonprofit publication, Commonweal's honorarium is more generous than some; many nonprofits and start ups want content for free.

Neither does Commonweal get any money from Wikipedia, when they borrow liberally from an article and throw it up on their Web site, as I learned to my horror when I realized that my humble article on the beguines was over there. I was wrongly identified as an historian, and the entry ignored many more (though perhaps no less enthusiastic) scholars who have written more about this topic.

Irene -- do people with B&N cards (which I have) get the same discount online? That would be an inducement to switch permanently :-)

I"m switching to Barnes & Noble online, at least temporarily. That's not the same thing as a boycott --- that's just an attempt to influence Amazon's policy.

I used to check out WaPo's "On Faith" section often. Unlike the NYT WaPo reports on a lot of religious news. But I noticed within the week that Bezos bought WaPo that the articles included some pretty sleezy, sensational stuff, more like National Enquirer stuff. Sad, sad, sad. Bezos is too dumb to appreicate what a gem it was that he bought.

The greatest thing about Amazon, imho, is Kindle Direct Publishing. You can write a book or an article, design a cover, and publish it yourself. No charge. Fast and fun.

The publishers are whining because their business model is obsolete. They thought ebooks wouldn't take off. Now, as the NYT, FT, etc., etc. report, ebooks are the future of publishing. Amazon provides a platform for one and all. Free and fun. 70% royalties. International distribution.

I also like Amazon Prime. I order stuff and voila, it arrives two days later.

(One new thing those who are not boycotting Amazon may not have noticed: Amazon Smile. If you sign up for that, they donate money to the charity you select. Many religious orders are listed and can be chosen as recipients.)

The comment about "hypocrisy" in your first posting, @ 2:50 above, does no credit to your ability to find out information.

The company that supplies magazines electronically to libraries is the one that sells Commonweal articles on Amazon. No writer from Commonweal ever gets a red cent from them, or decides whether or not their articles will go on the market, much less sets the prices. It is one of the conditions of supplying the articles to libraries electronically that Commonweal accepts this condition (of resale). Would you refuse Paul permission to have his articles available in libraries?

Besides, writers -- and you should know this, as a writer -- do not get to decide which retailers carry their books. Suppose you instruct your publisher not to sell your book to Amazon. Amazon will buy it from another aggregator if they want to. And given the "marketplace" feature of Amazon, it's impossible to guarantee, even if one blocked Amazon somehow, that a given book would never be sold through Amazon. You'd have to block every dealer who deals with Amazon. Won't work. My books are sold by all sorts of vendors, all over the world; none are selling them with my explicit permission. None. That's how the market works.

To boycott a retailer as a consumer is meaningful; to talk about boycotting a retailer as an author is pretty much meaningless. To tax authors with "hypocrisy" for not controlling who sells their books is to shoot at the wrong target.

Paul could put the same articles on Amazon through Kindle Direct Pulbishing and charge as little as 99 cents. Then he would get the money.

Wha ....?

Writers publish in magazines instead of self-publishing because their work gains credibility and someone is doing fact-checking. Moreover, publish in a magazine that already has a following, and your piece will be read by more people than throwing it out there with all the self-published clutter, the standards of which are entirely dependent on those doing the publishing ... and the credibility of which tends to be associated with the lowest common denominator. There's a reason serious writers want to blog for Commonweal or the NYT or HuffPo instead of on blogspot.com.

Thanks for the tip on editing the Wikipedia page. I have corrected my creds and pronouns that referred to me as a "he."

The articles by Paul Moses being sold on Amazon have already been published in Commonweal. You can buy them with confidence.

I'm suggesting he go into competition with the unnamed "company that supplies magazines electronically to libraries" and put up the same articles through KDP, priced to sell. He would get the royalties that are now flowing into the unnamed company's coffers.

As to the lowest common denominator? That's why there are only 5 or 6 publishers of books left, massive conglomerates who are interested in one thing only: making money. It's all about money. And why shouldn't it be?

The idea that only those who can write the kind of books that the big six want should be allowed to publish is gone with the wind. Technology has made it possible for all of us to communicate whatever we want whenever we want. The moon belongs to everyone, as Bert Cooper's ghost sang on Mad Men last night.

I have to admit I love Amazon. I can't drive and it was hard to get to bookstores, but now the bookstore is at my figertips, and has a huge selection, including used books. Plus, my sister kindly gave me an Amazon kindle, and now I can read so many books that before I couldn't because of small print. Also, I've often sold used books on Amazon ... neat that anyone can do this. And as Gerelyn mentions above, the ability to publish your own writing on Amazon is also great. Finally, Amazon has a feature that allows you to painlessly donate to your favorite charity every time you buy something: AmazonSmile

I love Amazon so much it totally delivered everything I ever wanted and I never had to talk to strangers nor did I have to touch dirty books other humans had touched. It's so worth never having made any money off them and the destruction of the local bookstore. Sleep well, capitalists.

So who cares if Amazon is actually a help to some like the disabled, if it allows people who otherwise couldn't get published to have their work read, if it helps you contribute to charity ... it's all about capitalism?

And PS - another non-capitalist thing about Amazon ... you can check out library books there. Most public libraries allow you to electronically check out kindle books for free and they are supplied by Amazon and checked out in the same way you buy books. For someone like me who can't drive to the libaray, this is wonderful. But hey, what do I know?

As the editor of a great and powerful magazine, you can afford to be cavalier about never getting a "red cent" from the sale of your articles, but I would think you would make some effort to see that your contributors get the money that should be coming to them for their work.

I don't understand why Commonweal would turn over the rights to the old articles to the unnamed company and let them sell them for exorbitant (imho) prices. (I guess I think it's Commonweal that should be boycotted, not Amazon.)

To listen to Gerelyn and Crystal, you'd think Amazon was a philanthropic organization. It ain't, believe me. Or rather, don't believe me; read this. Amazon doesn't give a toss about books or readers. It got into books because books are easy to store and ship. Amazon cares about market share and profit, nothing else.

Many of the Commonweal articles sold by Amazon are avaibable for free on Commonweal's website; the others are available to subscribers. $9.95 may be a lot to pay for an article at Amazon, but $34 is not a lot to pay for a digital subscription to the magazine.

As George Packer concludes, the only way for the publishers to save themselves from Amazon's death grip is for them to dump Amazon and sell their books directly to readers on their own websites. Otherwise the extortion will continue. I believe there's still a market for books that have been vetted and improved by the "gatekeepers" Gerelyn so despises. If Amazon wants to distribute self-published e-books, good luck to them, but I doubt there's much money in it.

Thanks for shedding light on Amazon's current campaign against Hachette books. As much as I'm a devout user of all the wonderful technological devices and platforms that have been created in the past 15-20 years, it seems as though we've become like giddy, mesmerized children fascinated by all the flashing lights and have become oblivious to the value of the content transmitted by these devices/platforms. That's what's at stake here. Amazon is so dominant that it can strangle publishers to accept their terms for payment on ebooks. Ask anyone who used to be in the music industry what happens when you let a single retailer determine the price of your product. Apple became the music industry in many ways when it sold the record companies on charging $.99 per song. Once the horse is out of the barn it's impossible to get him back inside. Hachette is trying to stand firm to make sure that publishing companies can afford to continue to be in the business of acquiring, editing and marketing content--whether it's physical books, ebooks or whatever technology for distributing ideas/content we develop in the future.

For what it's worth our book is available at all B&N stores and their website as well as countless independent booksellers.

- it does, for instance , offer many books on kindle for free ... the last one I got for free there was The Three Musketeers.

- And as for those books that aren't vetted by publishing companies but are self-published ... some of the most successful books have been those. One example is "Wool" by Hugh Howey. It's soon to be made into a movie by Ridley Scott. Howey self-published the book and it sold so many copies that now Simon & Shuster is going to piblish it in papaer. Meanwhile you can read the kindle version at Amazon for 99 cents. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wool_%28series%29 This isn't a unique example.

Ann- I get 5% off online orders with my B&N card, plus free express shipping. I think you need to be a "member" to get the free shipping, but they made me a member free when I got the credit card. I also get the $25 gift cards periodically when my purchases hit whatever level it is.

RE: Amazon and the library books. At my library (the NY Public Library), you could borrow digitally with other e-book readers quite a while before you could do it with a Kindle; we can borrow with Kindle now, but that was one of the reasons I switched to Nook- at the time youcould borrow library books off Barnes & Noble Nooks and a bunch of other readers, but not Kindles.

The only thing I'm having a hard time weaning off is the Amazon streamng service. I use Roku (as an effort to get away from my cable company, an entity I dislike even more than Amazon); I haven't figured out how to use Nook Video yet with my television.

I did. Thanks. Not sure why you recommend it, though. It further undercuts your case against Amazon. It points out, e.g., that while Amazon was growing, the old-fashioned gatekeepers could have done exactly the same thing the “skinny” guy was doing.

Amazing the contempt for customers the haters of Amazon quoted in the article show, including those who live in “Podunk” towns with no bookstores. And the contempt extends, of course, to Amazon’s managers: “The vast majority fall within the same personality type—people who graduate at the top of their class at M.I.T. and have no idea what to say to a woman in a bar.”

(Haha!)

“As George Packer concludes, the only way for the publishers to save themselves from Amazon's death grip is for them to dump Amazon and sell their books directly to readers on their own websites. Otherwise the extortion will continue.”

Yes, they could have done that from the start, Matthew, but they preferred to cling to their buggy whips and their quill pens.

Packer also says, “Amazon did not raise retail prices; it simply squeezed its suppliers harder, much as Walmart had done with manufacturers.”

Does anyone think the publishing conglomerates do not squeeze book sellers? The space in even the biggest stores is limited. Who decides which books get the best placement and the longest stay on the shelves? Etc. To defend the publishing conglomerates while gnashing teeth at Amazon is fatuous.

I like Packer's last paragraph, too. ". . . Bezos is right: gatekeepers are inherently élitist, and some of them have been weakened, in no small part, because of their complacency and short-term thinking. But gatekeepers are also barriers against the complete commercialization of ideas, allowing new talent the time to develop and learn to tell difficult truths. When the last gatekeeper but one is gone, will Amazon care whether a book is any good?"

Hahahaha! The big five/six are all about "allowing new talent the time to develop." Sure they are. And they're all about protecting us from "the complete commercialization of ideas." (That's why a full-page ad for Clive Cussler's latest "difficult truths" is glaring at me from the back page of the NYT Arts section this morning.)

It's less than $10 at barnesandnoble.com, and usually ships within 24 hours. And can be downloaded to a Nook, which I own and like and maybe even mildly love, also for less than $10. And I have a child who graduates in a couple of weeks. Thanks for the tip!

The power-play involved in delaying book delivery to punish publishers certainly has the potential to backfire on Amazon. One of their drawing cards is fast service (and free delivery over a certain purchase total). Once it begins to be the case that you're waiting week after week for a book -- any book -- customers are going to go elsewhere. Customer loyalty does not mean that customers won't get fed up.

I don't know about anybody else here, but when I order a book from a retailer and it doesn't come, I blame the retailer.

Amazon has virtues. Their guarantee is very good, and I've used it -- in my experience, they live up to their promises. Their customer service is prompt and courteous and efficient. You don't get that everywhere. I appreciate the ease with which their website is used; I don't find Barnes & Noble or other booksellers as user-friendly. The "look inside," the music samples, the customer reviews, and other apparatus allow me to make better decisions about what to buy. These are all the result of smart choices, which reflect well on the company.

That said, they have no business putting the squeeze on publishers. That needs to be called out, and it has. To me, it looks like extortion, blackmail. There ought to be a law (if there isn't one already) against such practices wherever they occur. Our legal system cannot instill ethics. But it can protect businesses, and it does so all the time. If Amazon practices extortion, there should be legal redress and ways to rein them in. A boycott calls attention to the problem, but the long-term solution probably does lie with the courts.

Aware that I'm fortunate to be able to do so, I keep trying to be more careful about making consumer decisions that are motivated not just by thrift but by supporting the kind of economy I want to live in. (Although thrift as in thrift stores -- that is, buying secondhand instead of new -- can be a big part of that.) One of the things I like about where I live now is the cluster of locally owned businesses I can walk to: grocery store, drug store, bakery, coffee shop, gift shops, etc. It's not just convenient to have those things; it also makes for a pleasant, safe and family-friendly town center, summer jobs for teenagers, a place to go with the baby stroller, etc. And I know that if I like having those things around, I need to support them -- which means being willing to pay a little more at the drugstore for something I know I could get cheaper if I drove to a chain or cheaper still if I ordered it online.

That's not to say that I never order anything online. Quite the contrary. But I'm much more aware of the invisible costs of prizing convenience above all than I was back when Amazon.com and online shopping in general was new and shiny and miraculous.

Books are a slightly harder case. I really want to "support my local independent bookstore," as the slogan goes. But they can only stock so much, and what they stock (usually new releases and best sellers) is very often not what I'm looking for. I always check there first, and am almost always disappointed. (Plus they don't ever seem happy to see people in their store -- they're not as unpleasant as the personnel Jean Raber describes, but they're not friendly either, which does away with the warm fuzzies I'm supposed to get from shopping there.) So, while I still go out of my way to buy things like stationery at the local indie bookshop, I have come to see the nearby Barnes and Noble as a good compromise when I need a specific title, or a wide range to choose from. Nowadays they certainly pass the "what kind of community do I want to live in" test. (And, books are one of the things I most often buy secondhand. I love a good used-book sale.)

The clerks (we we allowed to call them that?) at our local bookstores aren't exactly bubbly personalities or glad-handers. They're sort of bookish and nerdy, kind of how I expect most of us are who hang out here :-). I always find it a little bit disconcerting when one of them quietly gushes over a book I'm purchasing (or, in the case of the pubic library, checking out). I think they work where they work in part because they love books and would rather be surrounded by them than scanning deodorant and cleaning supplies at the Target checkout aisle.

"I think they work where they work in part because they love books and would rather be surrounded by them than scanning deodorant and cleaning supplies at the Target checkout aisle."

I would also bet that they work there because, as Mollie W. O'R noted above, they are fortunate to be able to do so, and that if they too could afford to do so, those who work "at the Target checkout aisle" would also choose a job that they love.

Which, incidentally, reminds me of that saccharine movie, You've Got Mail, where this female protagonist runs a small independent bookstore but somehow lives alone(!) in this fancy apartment in NY.

Those interested boycotting Amazon will find this paragraph especially helpful:

"The surprising thing about the change I made is that it wasn’t that difficult. I once more patronize local book stores, which are far more enjoyable to browse. I’ve bought e-books for my iPad from four different non-Amazon vendors (Apple, Google, Barnes and Noble and Kobo), easy as pie, and I buy used print books from AbeBooks and Powells.com. I subscribe to Oyster, a new Netflix-for-books service. I also belong to Paperbackswap.com, a site that, for a small fee, enables its members to trade in their used books for credits that can be redeemed for the used books of other members. In fact, books have been the easiest thing to shop for since I made it my policy to avoid Amazon."

“The American Businessman’s Ten Steps to Product Development” according to George Carlin (God rest his soul): Can I cut corners in the design? Can it be shoddily built? Can I use cheap materials? Will it create hazards for my workers? Will it harm the environment? Can I evade the safety laws? Will children die from it? Can I overprice it? Can it be falsely advertised? Will it force smaller competitors out of business? Excellent. Let’s get busy.

While Amazon is mainly a supplier (not a producer), it wants to be the biggest supplier, the biggest e-tail warehouse on the planet. As consumers (addicts?) we want an abundant and affordable supply, and we want it now with free delivery.

Many books (hardcopy or ebook), DVDs and CDs .... new and used ... are available at a deep discount (I've paid as little as 1 cent for an admittedly dogeared mass market p/b) via addall.com. I have never once gotten stung on a used CD or DVD, either. The site is easy to navigate and you can search via title, author,ISBN or keyword) for books. Music: via album, artist or upc. Movies: title, author, director, upc, DVD or VHS.

addall.com is a clearing house for many sites (Amazon, B&N, Al Libris, etc) which, in turn funnel independent sellers through their channel. Many non-profits (Goodwill, Sally Anns, etc) sell this way.

I have used addall for many years now (Crystal ... definitely look into it) and which Amazon is extremely competitive, it is not alway the only nor cheapest site from which to buy.

Used and used, but the sellers are pretty good at describing the condition (acceptable, good, like new) before you buy.

You do, of course pay a shipping charge (usually -- but sometimes less -- $3.99).

It is not necessary to be a slave to the big box behemoths when there is a lot of competition available, and all in one source.

For what it's worth. I order all the books I can't find at my non-existant local bookstore from Alibris. It's a network of independent bookstores with very deep shelves. I've long been put off by Amazon's market dominance and was even more disturbed when I read the New Yorker article.

I think there are actually some serious Catholic, Incarnational questions to ponder in our march to ever more digital lives. I think Grant kind of alluded to these.

As for Commonweal articles being sold on Amazon, I too found that articles I've written for other publications are resold on Amazon and at other services. I never gave any consent for this and I never get paid for them. I don't like it.

Interesting discussion. Does Amazon have monopoly power? Not yet, but it may at some point. Unless someone sets up a competing service of course. Amazon provides a valuable service for millions of people, as Crystal has noted.

I have always shopped at B&N online since I am a member. The independent book stores disappeared years ago in my suburban area and I love to go to the B&N store to browse. They have Starbucks, tables and chairs scattered everywhere, and free WiFi. It's real easy to stay a while, discover a previously unknown book, browse for a while, and end up buying it. They also have a huge selection of current magazines and journals, many from overseas. I buy books from them online also, although a clerk there told me that their retail stores too will also disappear if people don't support the real store instead of just the virtual store. The discounted prices online for members is about the same as Amazon. I only shop Amazon for books if I can't find one at B&N because I never acquired the Amazon habit for shopping in general.

I prefer real books, but I do check out ebooks from the library and read them on my tablet (android). B&N has a Nook store that has a link for free reading apps which leads to links for Google Play, iTunes and Windows something or other where you can get free apps for reading on Android and other devices. So you don't have to buy either a Kindle or a Nook reader if you have another device already. I have never bought an ebook though, only read free books from the library system. The B&N site, like Amazon, also has thousands of free books available, mostly classics of varying quality as far as scanning goes.

My local library system has periodical and reference databases that I can use remotely from my computer at home. One includes a huge range of periodicals, including Commonweal. Until I broke down and took out a subscription, I used to read "premium" articles in old issues (usually about a one month lag before new issues are available) via the library portal to the periodical data base.

I think there are actually some serious Catholic, Incarnational questions to ponder in our march to ever more digital lives.

This could be a great topic for a new post here. I recently transitioned from a working-mostly-from-home-but-occasionally-in-the-office to working-completely-from-home. We're so digital now that I don't actually need to see (or touch or smell, but I do still hear, over the computer and the telephone) my co-workers, much less customers, vendors and other "outsiders". The only person I see during my workday is the mailman, and he's probably a vanishing breed, too.

Re: Eileen Markey's comment that triggered my previous comment: my employer would love me even more if I would cease and desist from the anachronistic habit of going to the drug store (a term which I still use, and was pleased to see Mollie using) rather than getting my "maintenance med" prescriptions ordered online, a la the Amazon model. It turns out that professions like pharmacist and nurse, which traditionally have been very face-to-face-contact-intensive, also are being transformed into the cubicle-beehive culture. Or maybe that's a couple of decades old, too, and like me, they're now working in their basements.

About boycotting. I'm all for it when I feel it supports ethics. I boycitt products from China. If you want a real boycotting challenge, try boycoting China .... their products are so cheap and ubiquitous. But given they way they treat prisoners, the way they treat animals, the way they treat the Catholic Church there, the way they pollute the environment there, their actions with Tibet, etc., I think they are worth boycotting. But I'm sure boycotting Amazon is much more fun.

The Freshman Survival Guide (paper) is available at B&N for ~$5.00 with "usually ships within 24 hours". Amazon is charging ~$15 if they fulfill the order, with 2-4 week shipping, but Amazon also provides links to 47 other sellers with new copies from various sellers who are averaging ~$5.00 also and faster shipping.

Interesting that Apple and the Book publishers were caught breaking the law when they undercut Amazon. Second, so far Amazon has been very good for the consumer. Third, as we all know this is not the first time that Amazon has tried to influence publishers. But now it being given max publicity. So it is hard to fault Amazon when it has been more consumer friendly than all those bullies they bullied. Whatever we want to say about it Amazon has shown more respect for the consumer. Better than Microsoft and Apple. Certainly pubishers are not primarily concerned about quality. Witness the terrible memoirs they pay 8 figures for only because the subjects are famous.

Remembered Amazon beat up some barracudas. These were not Sunday School teachers.

If we really want to go after people who make sick money with little service we should go after the hedgefunds who for the most part ruthlessly make money without any real service to anyone.

"It is worth remembering the background to this dispute. In mid-2012 the U.S. Department of Justice was preparing a suit against five publishers, including Hachette, for colluding with Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL) in a price-fixing scheme that the publishers and Apple called an “agency” model for book selling. Under the model, first negotiated in 2010 between publishers and the late Steve Jobs, the publishers would set the retail price for e-books and Apple would take a straight 30% cut. The deal also included a requirement that none of the publishers sell e-books to any other company at a price lower than the publishers charged Apple.

Amazon had always operated under the “wholesale” model, under which the online retailer would negotiate a wholesale price with the publishers and then sell the book at whatever discount price Amazon wanted. The publishers believed that such discounting would lead to a severe loss of revenue, in much the same way that Apple had chopped the revenue of the music companies.

The publishers hated the wholesale model because Amazon charged just $9.99 for an e-book. In the deal with Apple, publishers set the retail price at as much as $14.99 ...."

Nobody has mentioned Bookfinder yet. It seems to be the largest of all, including prices from all the big online stores and indies, both in the U.S. and England. I use it especially for out of print books. Slate called it "the Google of dead books".

I unloaded a lot of "physical" books on BookMooch. You agree to send someone a book you don't want for free, then you get a point you can "spend" on a book you do want that someone else wants to unload. I sent all books strictly domestically and via media mail, so it cost me a few bucks in postage. It was kind of touching, really. Many people put little cards in the book telling me how much they loved the book and hoped I would too, or would send homemade book marks. I had a nice correspondence going with four or five people for awhile. We exchanged Xmas cards.

Anyhoo, after I decided to get rid of the book clutter (in my half of the house, anyway) and digitize my library, I ended up with a bunch of excess BookMooch points and donated these to a prison book charity.

I don't know why anyone has to love love love or hate hate hate Amazon or revile people who aren't one or the other. They're a big business. They're going to screw the "little people" and play hardball. Plus Bezos strikes me as a big goof. OTOH, I have never had anything but positive experiences with Amazon, though I haven't succumbed to the blandishments like Prime service; it just wouldn't be feasible for a low-income person like me.

I enjoy going to the indie shop in the Big City three or four times a year for an overpriced latte and to check out the second hand and sale bins. The people there are nice. Smart, too. I took their employment test one time because I heard it was a bear. It was harder than the GRE in lit.

One of my favorite bookstores from when I could see better ... Powell's in Portland, Oregon. It was (is) huge, but with a great used book section and a cafe :) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powell%27s_Books ... and the bookstores in Berkeley like Moe's and Shakespeare's were nice too.

"As you debate this I wonder if you understand a basic thing about this Hatchette v Amazon negotiation. It was mandated by the US Justice system. It's part of the fall out from the Apple/Publisher/AgencyModel collusion lawsuit. Each of the big five have been mandated, in staggered fashion, to renegotiate their contracts with the major booksellers. This isn't 'big bad Amazon' picking on little old Hatchette."